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Chinese Scientists Plan Solar Power Station In Space

Posted by samzenpus on from the or-you-know-stop-polluting-so-much dept.

knwny points out this lofty proposed power plan in China. "The battle to dispel smog, cut greenhouse gases and solve the energy crisis is moving to space. If news reports are to be believed, Chinese scientists are mulling the construction of a solar power station in a geosynchronous orbit 36,000 kilometres above ground. The electricity generated would be converted to microwaves or lasers and transmitted to a collector on Earth. If realized, it will surpass the scale of the Apollo project and the International Space Station and be the largest-ever space project."

27 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 5, Informative

    This stupid idea gets floated every few years. It doesn't work, even in theory. Do the math yourself.

    https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-maury-equation-redux/

    1. Re:No they don't by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      transmitted to a collector on Earth

      . . . or fry Washington, DC or Moscow . . .

      Take a look at "Diamonds Are Forever" for all the details.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:No they don't by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Will never happen.

      It certainly won't happen until we get better tech, but never say "never". But TFA is about some 93 year old retired Chinese geezer "mulling" the idea. He is speaking only for himself, and has no budget whatsoever. There is no "news" here.

      Putting solar panels on high altitude kites or balloons may make a more sense. They would be above most clouds, and could be tilted to always directly face the sun.

    3. Re:No they don't by rioki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, yes... But is it usable as a weapon?

    4. Re:No they don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You know what makes even more sense than that? Putting solar panels on fucking rooftops or on the ground.

    5. Re:No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > It certainly won't happen until we get better tech, but never say "never".

      You may have missed the point of the linked article. If you improve the tech of the panels, then the relative advantage of mounting them on the ground *improves*.

      > But TFA is about some 93 year old retired Chinese geezer "mulling" the idea

      Geez, I totally missed that.

      It always is, BTW. The entire space power group is made up almost entirely of retired astronauts and rocket engineers. That and the hangers-on like the National Space Society and such. I have yet to meet a single person from the power industry that is even marginally involved.

    6. Re:No they don't by cbelt3 · · Score: 2

      Since anti satellite technology is quite mature and tested, anyone who thinks that such a system would not have the equivalent of a few dozen nuclear shotguns permanently parked near it is... clueless. Of course the effect of having to destroy that would effectively make Earth orbit a no-go zone for decades until someone started sending up sweeper robots.

    7. Re:No they don't by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      JAXA (the Japanese space agency) has done the maths and decided it will definitely work. They describe the system in detail here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/green...

      JAXA intends to test the technology in 2018.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > JAXA intends to test the technology in 2018

      No, they don't. The project died, if it ever existed in any meaningful form, because it never had a budget.

      It was a trial balloon sent up by the space industry to create demand for new rockets. That's the only reason this idea keeps getting floated, as an excuse to make more rockets or heavy launchers.

    9. Re:No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

      > You've ignored the atmospheric losses suffered by ground-based systems -- clouds, dust, the opacity of air

      No, that's what the insolation number takes care of, I. There's a link right in the article to where this number came from, you can click it, type in your location, and find the number yourself. As I mentioned earlier, it definitely includes "clouds, dust, the opacity of air", as well as geometric pointing errors, day/night cycle, and even reflection off snow and dirt on the panels.

      > you're also being much more generous in estimating the potential lifetime of ground-based systems

      As the links at the bottom of the article note, these are real-world numbers as measured on real systems that have been in the field for decades. If you have better numbers, fine...

      PROVIDE YOUR REFERENCES AND DO THE MATH YOURSELF!

      > though that depends on how much we value land taken up by solar arrays

      Or rectennas. You recall that SPSS's have a downlink portion, right?

    10. Re:No they don't by ComputerGeek01 · · Score: 2

      It certainly won't happen until we get better tech, but never say "never". But TFA is about some 93 year old retired Chinese geezer "mulling" the idea. He is speaking only for himself, and has no budget whatsoever. There is no "news" here.

      Putting solar panels on high altitude kites or balloons may make a more sense. They would be above most clouds, and could be tilted to always directly face the sun.

      Agreed, this is an interesting discussion topi, but it is not news.

      However on the topic of whether or not this will ever happen I'm pretty sure that we can say it won't, at least not in China. The Gobi dessert is largely under developed and it's not getting any smaller. The US has already shown the utility of putting solar panels in areas like this with the power production projects that are going on in Nevada and Arizona. If China really wants to get above cloud cover then they can put them up on the Altai mountains. Personally I have no idea how active that fault line is, but I'm sure it would more economical then putting solar power collectors in space.

    11. Re:No they don't by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      ofc it had no budget.

      (*facepalm*)

      That does not change the fact that the math is pretty solid and it would work.

      The problem is to build such a solar station in orbit, not to fund it, or to make a profit from it.

      Or how exactly would YOU assemble a structure 100x100 meters or even 2x2 km in square in GEO?

      Why do you seek problems where are none and are so blind to see the obvious obstacles?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    12. Re:No they don't by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Physics.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    13. Re:No they don't by Translation+Error · · Score: 4, Funny

      Forget that! We need to go directly to the source and put the panels on the sun!

      --
      When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
    14. Re:No they don't by itzly · · Score: 2

      Since the space based system isn't exposed to regular moisture or oxidation though I'd bet most of it would actually last longer rather than less.

      It's subject to radiation, such as electrons and protons. If these hit the panel with enough energy, they will knock out silicon atoms, creating defects in the crystalline structure. Over time, this will cause the power output to drop.

    15. Re:No they don't by magarity · · Score: 2

      You know what makes even more sense than that? Putting solar panels on fucking rooftops or on the ground.

      It's a vicious circle; Have you not seen the pictures from Beijing? There isn't much solar energy getting through the existing smog for panels to cut down on the coal power to cut down on the smog....

    16. Re:No they don't by magarity · · Score: 2

      Yes, obviously. My post was mainly to inject some mildly ironic humor.

    17. Re:No they don't by Immerman · · Score: 2

      >That is incredibly unlikely without some other super-mega sci-fi project like a space elevator.

      Or mirrors? A multi-km parabolic orbital mirror can be built out of only thin mylar and a minimal stabilizing structure - with only minor construction, launch, and maintenance costs. You can then use that for extremely large-scale, high concentration photovoltaics, of the sort that just aren't feasible on Earth at almost any price.

      As for microwave lasers (aka masers - old enough technology that lasers were originally called "optical masers"), the whole point of using such things is that the atmosphere is almost perfectly transparent to microwaves. Unlike sunlight which sees ~30% losses to atmospheric absorption, microwaves mostly make it all the way to the ground. And then, since you're basically dealing with high-frequency radio waves, further concentration and conversion to electricity is relatively straightforward and efficient.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    18. Re:No they don't by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's still a current project:

      http://www.ard.jaxa.jp/researc...
      http://www8.cao.go.jp/space/pl...

      They are exhibited it recently: http://global.jaxa.jp/area/ssp...

      They took a major step forwards with the technology only weeks ago: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-j...

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    19. Re:No they don't by powerlord · · Score: 2

      Forget that! We need to go directly to the source and put the panels on the sun!

      Won't work. What happens at night?
      We need Solar Panels on the Moon too!
      Duh!

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  2. Sim City by Bradmont · · Score: 3, Informative

    I remember doing this in SimCity 2000. The downside was that every once in a while the sattelite would stray from its intended target and vapoirse some random building near the receiver....

    1. Re:Sim City by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 2

      Which makes it a nifty dual-purpose device; it provides power to your cities during peace, and fries your enemies during wartime. It's win-win!

      Get enough of 'em up there, and you can start using the satellites as solar shades too, blocking sunlight - in a very Burnsian fashion - from whomever does not pay.

      Too bad the inefficiencies of microwave transmission make the whole thing a pipe-dream. Might work when we have a space-elevator that can double as an extra-long extension cord but I'm not holding my breath.

    2. Re:Sim City by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 2

      We solved that problem early in the Solar Power Satellite studies at Boeing. The microwave transmitter in orbit is a phased array. The reference signal to adjust the phase is a transmitter in the center of the rectenna on the ground, powered by the rectenna. If the beam wanders off target, no reference signal, and the beam is no longer focused.

  3. It not being "planned" by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Talking about something and planning it are two different things. It appears whoever submitted this article fabricated the idea that this is being 'planned', or maybe its a problem with reading comprehension. It is clearly not being planned.

  4. The Chinese advantage by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When your government is full of engineers, not lawyers, and when you can just ignore the flat-earth lobby instead of wasting half your funding fighting their just-because-we-can delays, you can test ideas like this. If it can be made to work, it would mean baseload solar.

    The biggest unknown is the microwave link to send power to Earth. Would locating the receiving antenna ("rectenna") array in the desert avoid weather interference? Would the beam wander? I don't see it as being usable as a weapon because a huge structure in space is easily disabled from the ground.

    The next-biggest unknown is availability of construction materials. After the initial proof of concept, lugging large amounts is metals up the terrestrial gravity well is not goiong to be an option. This is an application for "local" metals, from the Moon or from the Belt. Implementation would have to wait until this supply becomes available.

  5. Space debris by Misagon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think a large problem is going to be space debris - debris from previous launches and defunct satellites.
    When the idea of an orbital power station was first formed in the early days of space exploration, space debris was not a problem. These days there is a huge number of tiny objects circling the Earth at high speeds - like bullets being shot at random.
    The larger the orbital mirrors are, the more surface area there would be for collecting space debris.

    Sure, you could place them in higher orbit, but then the mirrors would not get as much protection from solar wind from the Earth's magnetic field.

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
  6. That's all wrong. by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

    I suggest stopping the moon in it's orbit and making it geosynchronous, then spray painting it with a highly reflective silver paint. That way we can get enough sunlight at night to compensate with ground-based solar panels.
    That's really simple to do, right? Easy Peasy!
    :-D

    --

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